Trump Tweets Hope For “Substantial Increase” After OPEC Agrees To Hike Oil Production By 700kb/d

Update 4: for those asking how long it would take Trump before he commented on the OPEC decision, the answer was about an hour, as moments ago Trump tweeted his third direct “message” to OPEC int he past 3 months, saying “Hope OPEC will increase output substantially. Need to keep prices down!”

Update 2: the deal is done and here are the headlines, which are as mostly reported previously – a 1 million “paper” production increase, which however will not be fully satisfied since many nations are already at their peak output, as OPEC nations comply with output quotas – with the exception of the “real” production increase, which according to the Nigeria energy minister will be 700kb/d while earlier reports had it at 600kb/d:

SAUDI OIL MIN: `WE HAVE AN AGREEMENT,’ DECIDED ON 1M B/D HIKE

KACHIKWU SAYS OPEC SIDE TO ADD 700K B/D IN REAL BARRELS

SAUDI WILL BOOST OIL OUTPUT, MINISTER SAYS

OPEC COMMUNIQUE SAYS GROUP WILL STRIVE TO REACH 100% COMPLIANCE

DRAFT OPEC COMMUNIQUE SEEN BY BLOOMBERG DOESN’T GIVE NUMBERS

NIGERIA SAYS QUOTAS WERE NOT DISCUSSED IN OPEC MEETING

SAUDI MIN: OUTPUT HIKE DEPENDS ON WHICH NATIONS HAVE CAPACITY

SAUDI MINISTER: OUTPUT HIKE WILL BE `PROPORTIONAL’ BY COUNTRY

And with the next full OPEC meeting scheduled for on Dec. 3, Bloomberg notes that ministers will hold a very important meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee in Algiers in September. That will be a chance to review the deal and make any adjustments.

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Update: It seems oil market traders suddenly woke up and spiked WTI back above $67 – its highest since June 1st – which will likely prompt an angry response from President Trump…

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What was expected to be a drawn-out affair, with Iran potentially resisting and even leading to the collapse of the cartel, moments ago OPEC reached a deal in principle to raise oil production by 1 million b/d on paper, and in reality by 600 kb/d as many of the OPEC nations are already tapped out and unable to produce more.

The deal is roughly what the committee had agreed to yesterday and is the plan pushed by Saudi Arabia all week.

And while details haven’t yet been formally announced, the deal would mean a return to 100% compliance with output quotas.

As Bloomberg notes, this is the deal traders have been waiting for:

The fear was that, if the meeting broke up in disarray, Saudi Arabia would simply open the taps and other producers would follow suit, unleashing far more supply than the market needed. What this deal does is to bring some order to the process of easing supply restraint.

Indeed, absent some last minute shock, Iran appears to have gone along with the majority and will comply with what is effectively A Saudi-Russian decision, prompted by Trump complaints for the cartel to produce more oil .

As Bloomberg further adds, any distribution of output increases among OPEC and non-OPEC members “is going to create winners and losers.”

While the headline number is what will matter for oil prices, the relative gains and losses against their fellow members will also be important to the participants. That could mean ministers still have a way to go before they are finally done. But the fact that they have got as far as they have means that cohesion has, once again, proved paramount.

Brent crude edged toward $75 a barrel on the headlines, but has pared back a bit, whereas WTI was trading in the upper $66 range, not a big move from the recent range, suggesting that the outcome is largely as priced in.